


Tiger Tiger, Late At Night

by Otterly



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, snek - Freeform, sssssssss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 06:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otterly/pseuds/Otterly
Summary: Fangmeyer watches Judy's apartment for a nightFor /trash/'s Thematic Thursday: Sleepyheadstotally stole the name from PresterJohn





	Tiger Tiger, Late At Night

“So, can you do it?” said Judy.

Fangmeyer ran her rough tongue over one of her fangs, feeling its point dig slightly, but not cut. “Of course I can. Anything for you, Hopps.”

The bunny leaning on her desk nearly jumped for joy. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

“It’s no problem.”

“But it is! I definitely owe you one. Paperwork for a week?”

That was tempting. Fangmeyer smiled. “Sure. And maybe record Wilde eating some spicy food for me.”

“It’s a deal,” Judy chirped, sliding an envelope to the tiger. “Here’s the keys to the apartment. Food should be in the cupboard. Earplugs, too. My neighbours are a little…wait." Her brow furrowed. "My bed is fox sized at best. Are you gonna be okay?”

The tiger’s tail swished and flicked as she thought. “Yeah, probably.”

“Okay, but if it ends up being too uncomfortable, feel free to leave for the night. I don’t think—“

“Hopps. Judy,” Fangmeyer chuckled, taking the bunny’s paws. “I’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

Snakes were a weird subject for Fangmeyer. They weren’t scary to her -- she was more of a threat to snakes than they were to her, after all. A single swipe of her paws and she could kill most things dead. No, snakes were just really weird. They could be cute in certain photos that Grizzoli liked to shove in her face during their lunch breaks, but seeing one move around in person just felt... she wasn't sure. Surreal?

She stared at the chubby yellow python in front of her, caged from her touch by a wide glass terrarium.

“You’re lucky to have Hopps for an owner,” she said to it, squinting her eyes in distrust as it darted its tiny tongue in and out of its mouth towards her general direction. “She cares about you a lot.”

The snake didn’t deign to hear her. It simply slithered into its little cave and out of her sight.

Fangmeyer leaned back, careful about the weight she was putting on the swivel chair she was sitting on, and lazily spun herself around the rabbit’s apartment. Decently cute but peeling wallpaper covered the no-doubt run down walls, decorated in turn with pictures of Judy’s family, a selfie with Nick Wilde and even a nice group photo of the precinct.

Curiously, she stood up and walked up to the photo, finding herself towards the side and surrounded by her squadmates.

“Nice,” she whispered to the other, smaller Fangmeyer.

Suddenly, her ringtone sounded, blaring happily through her pocket, bouncing off the walls of the quiet apartment and startling the heck out of her. The tiger fished her phone out, answering with a grumpy mutter. “This is Fangmeyer.”

“Hey there, partner!” Grizzoli trilled excitedly. “How’s it going at Judy’s?”

“Just fine,” she said, trying not to groan as she looked out the window, seeing the lights across the city clash against the dark of the sky. “I was actually about to head over to bed.”

“Did you feed the snake?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Grizzoli giggled. “Gross. Did you have to hold one of those weird protein balls with tongs and wave it around? To make it look like it’s alive?”

Fangmeyer’s stomach did a flip. “You called for a reason, Grizzoli.”

“Only to invite you out again, but I already know the answer––“

“Good!” Fangmeyer interrupted. “Then we have nothing more to talk about.”

“Wrong, that means we have a whole bunch to talk about. Come on! It’s three dollar highballs!”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m apartment-sitting for Hopps while she and our newest recruit have their first vacation together.”

“The apartment will be fine without you for a couple of hours, and Judy and Nick will forgive you for having fun for the first time in your life. The club’s only like, four blocks away from where you are!”

“I’m hanging up now,” Fangmeyer faked a yawn. “See you on Monday, Griz. Enjoy our break.”

“No no no––“

A beep cut off the wolf’s begging, leaving her in silence once again.

Fangmeyer turned her attention to the bed in the corner, feeling awkward. Hopps was considerate and changed the sheets before leaving, but the frame itself and the adjacent wall was still drenched in the scent of her. And Wilde.

And jizz.

Fangmeyer willed herself to get over it. She was a big girl. She could do this. It was one night.

One night. Easy.

She exhaled, gathering her strength. It was time to see whether a tiger could sleep in a bunny’s bed.

 

* * *

 

The first incident wasn't her fault.

She had found a nice, comfy position on her belly to sleep in, and then immediately realized that there was something up with the bed. Something weird. Unexplainable. 

But Fangmeyer didn't care enough to find out what it was. She simply grit her teeth and found something else. 

After rolling around a bit, she ended up compressing herself into the fetal position and called it a night.

Surprisingly, she went out like a light.

 

 

And then, as fast as it turned off, the light was switched back on. She was awake once again. 

The feeling was comparable to anaesthesia. 

It was like mere moments had passed, though a glance at the clock told her that at least four hours had gone by.

At least she didn’t have to wonder what woke her up. Or who.

“ _You_  shut up!”

“No, _you_  shut up!”

Lather, rinse, repeat. Fangmeyer had quickly lost count of the amount of times they went through the motions. It had to have been for at least half an hour, though it felt like entire days and nights had passed, the two voices screaming stubbornly at each other in an attempt to create an auditory materialization of what happened when an unstoppable force met an immovable object.

She had two options: let it continue--

“ _You_  shut up!”

“No,  _you_  shut up!”

No, fuck that.

With grace and poise, she rose from her cramped slumber, walking over and opening the small closet that contained a number of assorted (all essential) cooking ingredients.

Mug.

Water. Coconut oil. Dash of salt. Vanilla extract.

“Shut up!”

A shit ton of hot cocoa powder. Sugar.

Mix. A lot.

“ _You_  shut up!”

“No,  _you_  shut up!”

More flour. Mix again.

"Shut--"

Tune them out.

She popped the resulting batter into the microwave and set it to a minute, finding solace in its mechanical droning.

When the brownie (that’s what it looked like, at least) was done, she let it cool for a minute, browsing her phone and ignoring all of Grizzoli’s grammatically criminal texts.

The brownie cooled, and she knew it was time. She put on some sweatpants and a tank top, and ventured into the hall where she found the neighbours’ front door.

Three loud knocks and two hoofers answered. An oryx and a kudu stood shoulder to shoulder, fighting for a singular place in the doorway.

Bucky and Pronk, Fangmeyer thought to herself. Hopps had written something about them in her little note, but by now the tiger was too tired to recall the specifics.

“What?” the kudu (Bucky?) asked, glaring at her.

Fangmeyer held her free paw forward, and unsheathed her claws.

“Do you see these?” she asked, waiting for both prey mammals to nod. “Yeah, well, they’re really quite huge, aren’t they? And big. But I don’t like using them. Problem is, I still get the urge. Don’t worry, I’d never actually do so. I care about my job. I’m just here to remind you that if I had been the wrong tiger, things could have turned out very bad for you tonight. This,” she held the mug forward. “This microwave brownie took me six minutes to make. Six minutes that the wrong tiger would have used to shut you up good, and in the ten minutes it would have taken for folks like me to respond, you would have been shut up _real_  good. Forever.”

She let the silence hang for a moment, putting the mug into the kudu’s hooves.

The oryx on the left spoke up, barely making a sound before she interjected with a wave of a single clawed finger.

“I’m only going to say this once, boys: don’t wake me up again.”

 

 

Challenge? Meet Fangmeyer. Rest in peace, challenge.

She didn't remember going back to the apartment -- that was a blur, but she did remember the glare of the moon against the bedsheets.

She fell asleep. 

* * *

 

The second incident was no one’s fault but her own.

An alarm sounded about an hour after she found sleep once more, screaming out from the speakers of her phone and into her ears. She was on call the day before, and had forgotten to turn it off. Fangmeyer made the mistake of waiting for it to end on its own.

It didn’t.

Instead, it rang another ten times before she found the will to open her eyes and turn the phone’s alarm off.

She should have been free to sleep, but apparently, tonight was not a night for peace. Half an hour of staring at the dark went by before she considered blaming some sort of conspiracy. More time (she wasn’t bothering to count anymore) passed when she finally came to the conclusion of “no, that’s ridiculous.”

Fangmeyer rolled onto her side. Her eyelids were heavy and her body was tired. There wasn’t any way she wouldn’t fall asleep.

And yet.

At least ten minutes, probably, passed before she realized that her side wasn’t doing anything for her. Grimly, she wondered about going back to the station to steal some of the prescription drugs Grizzoli seized from a frat house the other weekend. There would definitely be something in there to knock her out…

Still, she didn’t move.

Fangmeyer sighed, moving onto her stomach. With an agonized groan she dug her face into her pillow, hoping that it would block her airways and knock her out. But she couldn’t commit to that, lest she die. She instead rolled over again, ending up on her back.

“Heh, _back_  to square one,” she whispered to herself.

A noise made her jump up. She surveyed the tiny apartment, seeing no one until her vision ended up at the glass terrarium in the corner.

The snake was awake and looking at her.

Fangmeyer waved, before sheepishly lowering her paw. It probably didn’t know what a wave was supposed to convey, given the fact that it had no arms. She brought her knees up to her chest and leaned forward, peering at the wiggly reptile as it slithered in place.

It seemed playful, so she smiled. “Hey there. I…don’t remember your name.”

The snake stopped in place, and darted its tongue out at her.

“What do you do when you can’t sleep?” Fangmeyer asked it.

The snake simply stood there. Or, whatever snakes did that was the equivalent of standing.

Fangmeyer chuffed. “Now that I think about it, you don’t have eyelids. Maybe I should just stay awake as long as I can. I mean, I’m allowed to pass out, right? No work tomorrow.”

The snake did nothing, and then it nodded.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t pass out.

An hour? Two? Something more than forty-five minutes went by. The snake had gone to curl up in its tiny cave, the silence was too quiet and Fangmeyer was alone.

Admitting defeat, the tiger checked the time.

Four AM.

She received a text shortly after. A gray bubble of words peeked out of the top of her screen, reading…well, her vision was blurry and she didn’t want to rub her eyes. But they were from Grizzoli.

Fangmeyer bit her lip, finding his contact page and calling his number.

“Fang?” he answered almost instantly.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Sucks to suck. I’m gonna take a guess and say that it’s definitely because of the tiny bed. Did Judy say you could go home?”

“…No.”

“Why can’t you go home?”

“Because I said I’d stay here.”

“I can respect that,” he chuckled. “Listen, drink some like, wine or something.”

“There is none.”

“Tea?”

Fangmeyer’s silence told him enough.

“Yikes,” he said, clicking his tongue. “Okay, well — hold on. Guys! I’m heading out! Okay bye! Fang?”

“I’m so tired,” she whispered painfully.

“Drink some water. I’ll call you in a bit.”

“Whatever.”

He hung up.

And then he knocked on her door, just like that. She smelled him through the walls — whiskey and throw-up and young male wolf. She fell out of bed and lumbered over to let him in.

And then she was in bed.

“Liar,” the wolf scolded her from Judy’s rolly chair. “You said you couldn’t sleep.”

“I couldn’t,” she said.

“You’re micosleeping right now! Your blinks last for like entire minutes. I don’t think I even needed to come over.”

“Why,” she asked, rolling over to face him. He was in a t-shirt, which was strange for her to see. Risque, even. He didn’t look the same without his uniform. “You look like a kid.”

“Is that good or bad?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Why did you come?”

“I sprinted over. Man, running when you’re boozed up is really great.”

“Go home, Griz.”

“No, ma’am. You need a comfort wolf.”

Fangmeyer rolled over again, facing the other way. “You’re not trained.”

“A guard, then.”

“I can kick your ass any day of the week.”

“Go to sleep, Fang.”

She felt his paw on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch my tit.”

“Darn. You’ve foiled my plans.”

“You’re very still smart for a drunk mammal.”

“I’m good at drinking. Go to sleep.”

Fangmeyer sighed. “I can’t if I try.”

“Then talk to me!” Grizzoli chirped enthusiastically. She could see his dumb puppy face in her mind. “You had to have called for a reason, right? Do you secretly like me or something?”

The tigress chuffed amusedly. “Wanna hear something funny?”

“What’s that, Fang?”

“When I was a kid…” she yawned. “I, uh.”

Fangmeyer fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

The morning light woke her up, and then she realized it was the afternoon.

She looked to her side, finding a white wolf sprawled out on the floor and snoozing away. Grizzoli had stayed the night. Fangmeyer wondered if Judy would be mad, but the prospect was unlikely. They were surprisingly close friends. Though the same could be said for Judy and most of the other cops on the force.

Her phone rang. Speak of the bunny and she’ll come running.

“Fangmeyer,” she answered.

“Hey! Everything go okay?” Judy asked.

“Just fine,” Fangmeyer yawned, looking over the the wolf on the floor once again. He was opening his eyes now.

“Izzat Judy? _Judy!”_ he wailed, half yawning.

“Is that Grizzoli?” she asked. “Wait,” she said again, taking a moment. “Did you have sex in my apartment?”

“What the **_hell_ ,**” Fangmeyer gawked. “No.”

“I would forgive you if you did! Just, change the sheets—“

“No, Hopps.”

“What’s she saying?” Grizzoli asked.

“Nothing,” she told him quickly. “Listen, Hopps, I’ll call you later. Still waking up and all. Hope everything’s going well.”

“It is, and okay! I’ll give you the full rundown later then. Thanks again, Fangmeyer.”

The call ended, finally, and Grizzoli looked at the tiger with curious eyes.

“What.”

“Gonna get coffee.”

“Get me one.”

“I know.”

“Go, then,” Fangmeyer yawned again, waiting until he was near the door to say “Thanks, Grizzoli.”

He didn’t offer any further response, but she knew the wolf was smiling. The door clicked shut, and she was with herself and the snake once again. She looked over to the terrarium, seeing nothing as it was probably sleeping, and promptly decided to join in on the fun. Toppling over onto her back, she closed her eyes, and this time, sleep came with ease.


End file.
